Thunderbolts*

I'm trying to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the kind of movies that exist in my realm of expertise (i.e. Nerd shit), so I was only about a week late on watching the Thunderbolts*. I'm getting better at it.

I'll be honest, this is not a movie I asked for from Marvel. They have been floundering since Avengers: Endgame to come up with something that will catch on. I don't know how much Thunderbolts will actually catch on, but I did enjoy it. In what is a surprising rarity for Marvel movies, it was pretty grounded and street level. If by street level we mean espionage experts that are excellent hand to hand specialists. With the exception of the Sentry showing up, the power levels of everyone remained on the same level.

Let's continue in my new format that lets me get lazy and just bulllet point shit. There are spoilers so if you didn't watch the movie, you might want to wait to read this. Unless you don't care about that sort of thing.

The GOOD (or what I loved)

• I love Florence Pugh as Yelena, the new Black Widow. I'm glad that she is the center of this movie. She is the unexpected heart and she has a personal journey that she goes through. I don't know if this is a hot take, but I like her as a Black Widow more than I ever did for Scarlett Johansen. 
• I am a sucker for team dynamics and while everyone's powersets were similar, I like the personalities bouncing off each other and how they form into a family that they all needed.
• The action was really good and didn't resort to a lot of nonsensical hero stuff (lasers shooting, flying, other super hero bullshit). Just punches, kicks and some bullets. It's why more grounded stuff like Captain America: Winter Soldier stays at the top of my list.
• David Harbour is out here living his best life and his portrayal of the Red Guardian remains fun without ever going too far.
• This movie didn't reach for it's humor like Marvel movies tend to do. They didn't beat us over the head with jokes. These heroes are all dealing with depression and they don't joke around too much about it to undercut that theme.
• They treat this team like a bunch of rag tag failures (like DC's Suicide Squad or Marvel's Guardians of hte Galaxy), but everyone here feels competent which is refreshing. I'm tired of a team full of goofballs that only get serious in the last third of a movie. 
• The movie was a respectable length and nothing felt bloated. It felt surprisingly tight.
• I'm so glad we get more Julie Louis-Dreyfuss. She's a fantastic villain in this and we even get a little more of her backstory too. 
• This movie really did a good job of showing mostly everyone's backstory and motivation so that you can buy it. I do think there was a miss here and I will list that in the next section.

The BAD (what I didn't like)

• Words cannot express how much I mega-loathe the Sentry as a character. When I heard he was going to be in this, I rolled my eyes. They did the absolute best they could. But I still hate him.
• Also, they did what they could, but I also do not like John Walker. He was always an asshole and they do their best. I'll never get past my bias against him. NEXT.
• This movie does NOTHING to explain who Ghost is. If you didn't watch Antman and Wasp, you will have no idea who she is and the movie does not hold your hand. That's certainly a choice. It's hard to buy into her motivations.
• This is nitpicky, but Marvel created this problem, so I will address it. You can't keep making these movies all interconnected and tying into one another and then NOT have no other heroes show up when a big city like New York is attacked. 90% of Marvel characters live in New York, so the fact that we don't get one cameo is a problem. 
• Why are we even bothering with Bucky as a congressman? It's a weird direction for his character at this point and doesn't add anything. 
• Look, did they fumble Taskmaster in the Black Widow movie? Yes. Was I hoping they'd do more with her? Yes. Do they? Nope. She is dispensed early and quickly and that is it. With it dies my hopes of an actual Taskmaster in this universe. To be fair, his comic book version is super goofy and trying to make that work in a movie was a reach anyway.
• I was perfectly fine with the way they called themsleves the  Thunderbolts, but when they pivot to the "New Avengers", I was not down with that. At all. I also don't feel like explaining myself.

Yes, I had a number of bad things here, but I still really enjoyed this movie in spite of my what I listed here. I found it to be surprisingly fun and I did actually enjoy it.